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Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? (Job 28.12)

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Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? (Job 28.12) WHERE SHALL WISDOM BE FOUND? (JOB 28.12) © Margaret Barker, 2001 After Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586BCE, refugees fled south. The prophet Jeremiah went with them, and told them that the disaster had been due to their sins, and that even in Egypt, the punishment would continue. The refugees in Pathros confronted Jeremiah and would not accept what he said. The disaster had been caused, they said, by neglecting the Queen of Heaven. Jeremiah 44 then offers us a glimpse of the religion of seventh century Judah - burning incense to the Queen of Heaven, pouring out libations to her and making loaves to represent her: ‘For then we had plenty of food and we prospered and saw no evil’ (Jer. 44.17). Set alongside this the brief and stylised history incorporated into the Book of Enoch, known as the Apocalypse of Weeks because each period of the history is designated as a week. It is the history of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, the giving of the Law but without any mention of Moses and the Exodus, the building of the temple in the fifth week, and then, in the sixth week, ‘All who lived in the temple lost their vision, and the hearts of all of them godlessly forsook Wisdom, and the house of the kingdom was burned and the whole chosen people was scattered (1 Enoch 93). This history knows nothing of the Deuteronomists’ story of the Exodus and their hero Moses, but it does emphasise Enoch, and says that Jerusalem was destroyed after the people in the temple had forsaken Wisdom. There is even a poem about the rejected Wisdom: Wisdom went forth to make her dwelling among the children of men, and found no dwelling place Wisdom returned to her place, and took her seat among the angels (1 Enoch 42) *************************************** Just before the temple was destroyed, there had been a massive purge of the religion of Judah and Jerusalem, usually described as King Josiah’s reform. The Deuteronomists’ own account of this purge makes it clear that an old copy of a law book had been found in the temple, and this prompted the young king to remove from his kingdom everything which did not comply with the regulations of that law book. 2 Kings 23 describes what happened: anything associated with the worship of Baal and Asherah and the host of heaven was removed from the temple and destroyed. The priests whom earlier kings had appointed to burn incense in other cities were deposed, but they would not come to serve in Jerusalem; they stayed in their own areas. The account emphasised the destruction of the Asherah, which was taken from the temple and burned by the Kidron, and the destruction of the houses of the qdšm, a word usually translated male prostitutes, but which should perhaps be read as ‘holy ones, angels’, in view of the fact that Josiah was removing everything connected with the host of heaven. In these houses, women had woven linen garments for Asherah1. He also removed horses dedicated to the sun which had stood at the gate of the temple. What the refugees described as abandoning the Queen of Heaven, and Enoch described as forsaking Wisdom must have been this purge by Josiah. What he had tried to destroy was the older religion of Jerusalem and Judah. As late as the fourth century CE, people remembered what had happened at that time: the Jerusalem Talmud described how a large number of priests had fought with Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, and had then been settled in Arabia, ‘among the sons of Ishmael.’ (j.Ta`anit 4.5). These must have been the disaffected priests who would not accept Josiah’s purge. Jeremiah records the fear of King Zedekiah, one of Josiah’s sons: ‘I am afraid of the Jews who have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest I be handed over to them and they harm me.’ (Jer.38.19). The first temple was always remembered as the true temple. In the time of the Messiah, five things would be restored which had been in the first temple but not in the second: the fire, the ark, the menorah, the Spirit and the cherubim2. Elsewhere we read that in the time of Josiah the ark, the anointing oil, the jar of manna and Aaron’s rod had been hidden3. The account of Josiah’s purge must include within it somewhere the removal of the ark, the menorah, the oil, manna and Where shall Wisdom be found? © Margaret Barker, 2001 Page 1 of 10 high priestly staff, and the cherubim, presumably of the throne. Some of them may have been taken away for safe keeping, by those devoted to the temple tradition. Others would have been destroyed. The first chapter of the Book of Proverbs also describes the rejected Wisdom, and could well have been set in the period between the rejection of Wisdom by Josiah and the destruction of the city by the Babylonians. ‘How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing, and fools hate knowledge? Give heed to my reproof and I will pour out my spirit on you… because I called and you refused to listen… and you have ignored all my counsel… I will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when panic strikes you… when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me but I will not answer, they will seek me diligently but they will not find me.’ (Prov.1 22-28) This is a Goddess speaking to the people who have rejected her. Even a brief survey shows that there had been a Lady in Jerusalem who had been rejected and returned to her place among the angels. She had been worshipped with wine and incense, and bread to represent her. She had protected the city and given prosperity, and she had given vision to the priests. She had been evicted from the temple by Josiah, and her cult probably involved the items removed in the purge or remembered as missing from the second temple: the item named the Asherah, the host of heaven, the horses for the sun, the menorah, the oil, the manna, the high priest’s staff that bore almond blossoms, the ark, the fire and the Spirit. A long list, but these things were not forgotten. In the Book of Revelation John saw the ark restored to the holy of holies, (Rev.11.19), he saw four horses ride out from the temple (Rev.6.1-8), he saw the Man in the midst of the seven lamps, the menorah (Rev. 1.12), he heard the Spirit promising the faithful that they would receive the hidden manna (Rev.2.17). John was describing the restoration of the first temple. He also saw the Queen of Heaven in the temple, even though she is not named as the Queen. ‘A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars’ (Rev.12.1). At her feet was a great red dragon. She gave birth to a son who was destined to fulfil Psalm 2 - to rule the nations with a rod of iron - and presumably the rest of the Psalm as well: ‘You are my son. Today I have begotten you’. The woman’s son was taken up to the throne of God. These few verses in the Book of Revelation show the importance of the Lost Lady and the cult of the first temple for understanding Christian origins. ***************************************** Something of the Lost Lady and her world can still be recovered, a world in which profound issues were explored and theology was expressed, not in the abstract philosophies which we have come to associate with theology, but in pictures, symbols and the sound of words. This does not mean that it was an unsophisticated system. Wisdom theology has been overshadowed by a simplistic theology of history, which modern scholars have presented as Old Testament theology. Wisdom, by means of the images used to depict her, addresses such question as the relationship between the human and the divine, the means of apotheosis, the stewardship of knowledge, and the power which knowledge gives to transform or to destroy. ********************************* First, we need to consider the evidence of archaeology. • Hundreds of small female figurines (854 to date)4 have been found in Judah and Jerusalem, known as Judaean pillar figurines. They are between 8 and 14 cm tall, with prominent breasts and prominent eyes. Figurines found in Jerusalem and north Judaea sometimes wear a turban, and some hold a disc which has been identified as a shield, a drum or a loaf. The face is often painted red, the ‘dress’ seems to have been white, and there are traces of red and yellow decoration on the neck and shoulders, perhaps representing jewellery. These figurines were often found with horse and rider figurines. Many had been smashed. Archaeologists have concluded that these figurines went out of use at the end of the second temple period, the time of Josiah. • Graffiti have been found on two large storage jars at Kuntillet Ajrud in the southern desert, which seems to have been a resting place for pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. ‘I bless you by Yhwh of Samaria and by Asheratah’ says one, and the other ‘I bless you by Yhwh of Teman and by Asheratah.’ There has been endless debate about these inscriptions, and how the name Asheratah relates to the Old Where shall Wisdom be found? © Margaret Barker, 2001 Page 2 of 10 Testament name Asherah5.
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